256 



CHAPTER XL 



VICTOEIA. NEW SOUTH WALES. 



Excursions into the Bush near Melbourne. Opossum Snare. Tracks of 

 the Aborigines on Tree trunks. Town of Sandhurst. The Highest 

 Tree in the World. Aborigines on a Government Eeserve. Orni- 

 thorynchus paradoxus. Leaves of Australian Trees, why Vertically 

 Disposed. Fur-Seal in the Open Sea. Sydney Harbour. The Blue 

 Mountains. Excavations in the Ground caused by Bain. Shooting 

 Opossums by Moonlight. Fruit-eating Bats. Hunting Bandicoots. 

 Browera Creek. Intimate Belation of Land and Sea Animals. 

 Geological Import of this. Medusae in Fresh Water. Kitchen 

 Middens." Drawings by Aborigines. Handmarks. Trigonia and 

 Cestracion. 



Melbourne, March 11th to April 1st, 1814. — We sighted Port 



Otway in a glassy calm, and steamed past Hobson's Bay Heads 

 into Port Philip on March 17th, and anchored off Sandridge, the 

 seaport suburb of Melbourne. 



The English house sparrow may be seen quite at home on the 

 beach at Sandridge in flocks, picking up the refuse from the ships, 

 and also about Melbourne generally. The bird is beginning 

 to be a pest to the Acclimatization Society which introduced 

 it, and finding good food in the cages of the animals in the 

 Society's Gardens, refuses to leave them, but consorts with the 

 parrots in the trees and bushes, and steals the food on every 

 opportunity. 



I made three excursions from Melbourne. The first was 

 with Mr. Stephenson, the chief of the railway department, to a 

 piece of wild bush-land belonging to him, about 25 miles distant 

 from the city. We started with our host in a light bush waggon, 

 with materials for camping out. We were not seven miles 

 away from the city before the road became a sort of slough, 

 through which the horses could hardly drag the waggon, although 



